Ad Firm Promises Airport Revenue

Pa. Company Hired To Run Campaign

July 08, 1994|By JEANNE PECK Daily Press

NEWPORT NEWS — Airport officials have awarded a contract to a Pennsylvania company that promises to generate $350,000 in advertising revenue for Newport News/Williamsburg International over the next 10 years.

Interspace Airport Advertising will spend $40,000 to $110,000 to place a new reservations board and 40 other backlighted ads in the Newport News airport, said Patricia Ryan, business development manager for the Allentown, Pa.-based company.

The reservations board, which will give travelers direct phone access to hotels and car rental agencies, will be installed in the baggage claim area of the airport by Sept. 15, Ryan said Thursday.

"We have done a lot of research on these things," she said. "Most of your business travelers rely on them. They just pick up the phone, and it automatically dials the hotel or car-rental company."

The airport's current reservations board, which lists seven businesses, is underused by passengers because it is in a "strange place in the airport near the offices," said airport spokeswoman Christine Neikirk.

She said that board will be dismantled when the new one is completed. Neikirk added that the airport won't have to spend a dime to support the new ad campaign, which will promote local businesses.

In the past, three groups - the airport commission, a commission appointed by Newport News Mayor Barry DuVal and a private advertising agency - controlled or promoted the sale of display ads and management of the reservations board for the airport, Neikirk said.

"There was no central coordination or anything," said Neikirk, explaining the airport's decision to sign an ad contract with Interspace. "It's another service that passengers will have and use more often. And (Interspace) could make us more money. We were only getting about half of the money Interspace says they can get us."

Neikirk said she did not know how many display ads were in the airport now, but said Interspace will increase ad revenue by increasing the number of airport ads.

"But they aren't going to build something on the wall that we don't know about," she said.

Ryan said there would be space for 14 businesses on the reservations board. The company will also design and sell space for as many as 40 backlighted ads that will be displayed in the gate, security and baggage claim areas of the airport, she said.

Interspace, which has launched similar ad campaigns in 25 other American airports, on Monday will start selling advertising packages for $145 to $550 per month, Ryan said.

The airport will get a 30 percent cut of the ad sales, Ryan said. "That's where the $350,000 will come from in the next 10 years," she said. "That is a conservative estimate."

Interspace has placed ads in airports as large as the one in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn., which handles 2.9 million passengers annually, she said.

"We really like the small airports. That is our specialty," Ryan says, adding that Interspace has also sold ads that were displayed in airports as small as the one in Ithaca, N.Y., which handles just 214,000 passengers every year.